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B2 Word formation Sudoku
I love word formation and have always thought of it as quite a dynamic aspect of language which lends itself easily to gamification. Inspired by the simple 4 x 4 colour Sudokus in my son’s Lego magazines, here are some word formation Sudokus to give a fun yet challenging twist to the end of a…
Poetry lesson: If I Were King – A. A. Milne
The lovely folk over at Freeed.com brought to my attention that World Poetry Day is coming up, so here’s a fun creative writing activity based on a poem by A. A. Milne, the author of Winnie-the-Pooh, using the second conditional and rhyme. Here’s the original poem: I often wish I were a King,And then I…
International Mother Language Day – Advanced Lesson
Several years ago I discovered that 21st February was International Mother Language Day. Of course as a language teacher this fascinates me, and is likely to interest our students as language learners too. This text-based lesson for advanced learners will get them thinking about their own languages and give them some word formation practice at…
Vocabulary illustrations: Crime
Here’s an illustrated sheet of different types of crime. In textbooks they often have a list of the vocabulary with definitions, but I’ve always thought crime is so visual that some illustrations wouldn’t go amiss. You can use this as a vocabulary lesson in its own right, or as an introduction to a unit on…
Teaching vocabulary to students with language difficulties and disorders (Interview with Dr. Hilary Lowe)
I recently had the opportunity to speak to Dr. Hilary Lowe, a speech and language therapist based in the UK who has done extensive research into teaching vocabulary to secondary-age pupils with language disorders. Although this research was focused on monolingual L1 classes – students who struggle to learn vocabulary in their first language within…
‘The British Year’ – Review
I was fortunate enough to receive an Advanced Reader Copy of ‘The British Year’ from the publisher, and am thrilled to have an opportunity to write a review! It is part of a new series by Fiona Beddall and can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.es/British-Year-Britain-readers-English-ebook/dp/B08PSL68ZN/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 This is an excellent introduction to British culture for beginner…
Past Predictions for 2020
It’s that time of year again: the end, and then the beginning. Having worked at the same academy and with many of the same students for 9 years now, I’ve done most of the standard New Year activities. We’ve done reviews of your past year, which I do enjoy doing, but we’ve spoken a lot…
New Year’s Resolutions with Phrasal Verbs
Here’s an activity I did a while back, adapted for 2021, about using phrasal verbs in New Year’s resolutions. I’ve found that in a monolingual group of students from the same town/age group, an open discussion on New Year’s resolutions tends to be rather short, predictable, and, in a word, dull. They all want to…
Affixes Bingo
This is an extension activity rather than a lesson plan. I have done it with FCE and CAE groups as they should be familiar with a wide range of affixes in order to get through the exams. All Cambridge exam-based course books contain sections to help students become familiar with the prefixes and suffixes necessary…